In Houston, a Houston police sergeant was arrested July 27 on charges he took a bribe to provide protection for a vehicle carrying several kilograms of cocaine. Sgt. Leslie Atkins, 46, faces federal charges of aiding and abetting the possession with the intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and with accepting a $2,000 bribe to provide protection for a vehicle transporting seven kilograms of cocaine. He was arrested after a June 22 indictment was unsealed. The 19-year veteran has been suspended without pay. He faces a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence on the cocaine charge and could get life, and he faces up to 20 years for the bribery count. He is out on $50,000 bail.

A Cameron County bondsman is expected to appear before a federal judge and plead guilty to his role in the [former District Judge] Abel Limas corruption case.

Francisco Cisneros is expected to appear before U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville late Monday morning.

Court records show that Cisneros is expected to plead guilty to his role in ongoing corruption case involving Limas, a former judge with the 404th State District Court.

The federal grand jury indicted Cisneros back in June with conspiracy to extort under color of official right as well as aiding and abetting extortion under color of official right.

According to the four-page, two-count indictment, Cisneros paid former 404th Limas $700 dollars to give Rodolfo Garcia a personal recognizance bond back in January 2008.

Cisneros is among seven publicly named suspects in the case.

Court records have linked an attorney in Austin and another in Brownsville to the case but they have not been publicly named or charged in the case.

Suspect

Role

Charged

Guilty Plea

Sentencing

Abel Limas

Judge

March 29th

March 31st

October 3rd

Jose Manuel Longoria

Middleman

March 30th

N/A

N/A

Jose Santiago Solis

Attorney

April 29th*

April 29th*

October 12th

Ray Roman Marchan

Attorney

June 21st

N/A

N/A

Francisco Cisneros

Bondsman

June 21st

August 8th

N/A

Armando Peña

Probationer

June 21st

July 19th

October 24th

Karina Peña

Wife

June 21st

July 26th

October 31st

The wife of a probationer from Judge Limas' court has also pled guilty to bribing the judge in exchange for a favorable ruling on letting hubby leave the state.

A former Lubbock-based federal ATF agent "spent most of Thursday testifying in a federal corruption trial that he stole drugs and money from crime scenes with several Tulsa (OK) police officers." Amazingly, he blamed the beginnings of his corrupt practices on "peer pressure" from others in law enforcement:

"It cost me everything," he said of his criminal activity. "It didn't happen overnight. I can tell you that. It was a gradual thing. One bad decision led to another, and I ended up in a situation completely over my head.

"At first, it was peer pressure in accepting the money the first time. From there, it turned into greed. And for a time, that's the thing to do because that is what all these officers were doing, and I didn't see a way out," [Brandon] McFadden said.

He said he had tried to tell his supervisors about corrupt police activity but was "shut down pretty quickly."

Finally, in San Antonio, a Bexar County jail guard last month was convicted for smuggling hacksaw blades into the jail inside of soft tacos, the third time in three months Bexar guards have been caught smuggling items into the jail via food items.

These are all "isolated incidents," of course; kinda like the isolated cases of steroid use in baseball.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"A former federal ATF agent 'spent...Thursday testifying that he stole drugs and money from crime scenes with several Tulsa (OK) police officers.' Amazingly, he blamed the beginnings of his corrupt practices on 'peer pressure' from others in law enforcement...He said he had tried to tell his supervisors about corrupt police activity but was 'shut down pretty quickly.'"

Peer pressure, sure but "he tried to tell supervisors" is bullsh!t. You go into a federal supervisors office and state that you know specifically of corruption and they won't hesitate to address it if for no other reason than their own career is on the line - it's called self-interest. The fock could also simply have contacted the FBI who also would have addressed it. He's just trying to justify his own sleazy actions.:~)

If anyone thinks that the ATF has peer pressure to steal drugs and money, then you can only imagine what goes on in the DEA where it has become part of the culture to have a sense of entitlement to a percentage of the take.

If we was to shut down the government drug business i.e. DEA and got the military out of the smuggling business, about 40 years ago, we wouldn't be having the problems we have today.It seems to control the traffic, is to create the problem, and declare that this agency is the solution to fix it. The answer is to let the people be the government the more agency's we put into place to solve an unsolvable problem, is only going to create more of the crime that it is supposed to solve.If they solved the problem that they are put there to do, well they would have worked themselves out of a job, and nobody is going to do that. If you see a crime call a local police and fill a complaint, if it crosses the border of states then the FBI is hired to take care of it. Problem solved now we can get rid of all these other agencys and save the government billions of dollars.

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